Established about a decade ago, Japan-based Kurodahan Press offers a steadily growing line of quality translations from Japanese, including top-elling authors such as Yasutaka Tsutsui, Edogawa Rampo, Teru Miyamoto, Osamu Dazai, Enjoe Toh, Hiromi Kawakami, Jun’ichirō Tanizaki, Shūsaku Endō, Yasunari Kawabata, and Izumi Kyōka. All titles are available in softcover, and many in electronic format as well.

Featured Titles

Bullseye!
Yasutaka Tsutsui
Translated from the Japanese by Andrew Driver
$14.00
Formats: Softcover (ebook to be released shortly)
Genre: Contemporary fiction collection
ISBN: 978-4-902075-86-1
Pub date: July 2017
Dimensions: 5″ x 8″

A new collection of stories by Yasutaka Tsutsui, famed in Japan and worldwide for his darkly humorous, satirical handling of a vast range of themes central to the human condition.

Although often criticized for his treatment of “taboo” subjects such as disabilities, the Emperor, and old age, he is also recognized as one of the founders of post-modern science fiction in Japan.

A number of his works have been published to widespread acclaim in English including The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Salmonella Men on Planet Porno, and Paprika.

Yasutaka Tsutsui is Japan’s pre-eminent writer of metafiction. Over the last six decades he has produced dozens of novels and hundreds of short stories to national acclaim. He has won the Tanizaki Prize, Izumi Kyoka award, Kawabata Yasunari award, and Nihon SF Taisho Award. His latest and probably last full-length novel Monado no Ryōiki won the Mainichi Art Award in 2017. Tsutsui lives virtually incognito in Tokyo’s bustling Harajuku district.

Andrew Driver translated Japanese for nearly three decades. During his time in Tokyo he kick-started the Hysterick Theatre project. In 2005 he conceived, compiled and translated Salmonella Men on Planet Porno, the first English-language collection of Tsutsui short stories, followed by the novel Paprika. He passed away unexpectedly in 2017.

Mr. Turtle
Yusaku Kitano
Translated from the Japanese by Tyran Grillo
Softcover $12.00
Ebook $5.99
Formats: Softcover (ebook to be released shortly)
Genre: Fiction collection
ISBN: Softcover: 978-4-902075-80-9 / Ebook: 978-4-902075-92-2
Pub date: July 2016
Dimensions: 5″ x 8″

Kitano’s SF masterpiece renews the visionary integrity that won it the Nihon SF Taisho Award in 2001 as it finds its way into English at last. The protagonist is a hero in a half shell of an altogether different sort, a killing machine designed for combat who wants only to enjoy the simple pleasures of his daily life—working a blue-collar job, going to the library, and typing on his laptop—even as he is haunted by vague memories of a war on Jupiter.

To determine his future, he must piece together his past, navigating an unsympathetic society toward revealing the novel’s philosophical heartbeat. A character study of surreal wit, Mr. Turtle delivers action and insight, all the while crafting an homage to its chosen genre unlike any other.

Yusaku Kitano won the 4th Japan Fantasy Novel Grand Prize in 1992 with Mukashi, Kasei no atta basho (Where Mars Used to Be), and has won a devoted following in the SF community for his examinations of a range of social and personal issues, all cleverly cloaked in humor and gentle storylines.

During his studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he majored in Japanese Language and Literature, Tyran Grillo’s interest in song lyrics evolved into a love of poetry and literature, leading him to publish translations including Hideaki Sena’s Parasite Eve, Koji Suzuki’s Paradise, and Taku Ashibe’s Murder in the Red Chamber. He recently translated novels in Yoshiki Tanaka’s seminal Legend of the Galactic Heroes series. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University.

 

Backlist

Into A Black Sun
Takeshi Kaiko
Translated from the Japanese by Cecilia Segawa Seigle
$15.00
Formats available: Softcover
ISBN: 978-4-902075-91-5
Pub date: Dec. 2017
Dimensions: 5″ x 8″

Takeshi Kaiko’s shattering, semi-autobiographical novel of the Vietnam War, from the journalist’s perspective.

Tokyo Decadence: 15 Stories
Ryu Murakami
Translated from the Japanese by Ralph McCarthy
Softcover $20.00
Ebook $6.99
Formats available: Softcover, ebook
ISBN:  Softcover 978-4-902075-78-6 / Ebook 978-4-902075-79-3
Pub date: March 2017
Dimensions: 5″ x 8″

A cream-of-the-crop selection of Murakami’s brilliance and piercing wit, drawing from his best work over the last few decades. Not suitable for minors.

Rivers
Teru Miyamoto
Translated from the Japanese by Roger K. Thomas and Ralph McCarthy
Softcover $24.00
Ebook $7.99
Formats available: Softcover, ebook
ISBN:  Softcover 978-4-902075-59-5 / Ebook 978-4-902075-82-3
Pub date: November 2014
Dimensions: 5″ x 8″

Includes “Muddy River” (1977; won the Akutagawa Prize), “River of Fireflies” (1978; won the Dazai Osamu Prize), and “River of Lights” (1978). All three works have been released as major films in Japan.

Long Belts and Thin Men: The Postwar Stories of Kojima Nobuo
Nobuo Kojima
Translated from the Japanese by Lawrence Rogers
Softcover $16.00
Ebook $4.99
Formats available: Softcover, ebook
ISBN:  Softcover 978-4-902075-76-2 / Ebook 978-4-902075-83-0
Pub date: April 2016
Dimensions: 5″ x 8″

Powerful, often painfully honest satire depicting the Japanese male as a Milquetoast. Influenced by Gogol and other Russian authors, Kojima’s style and technique immerse the reader in the doubts and dilemmas of his characters.

On the Brink: The Inside Story of Fukushima Daiichi
Ryusho Kadota
Translated by Simon Varnam from the Japanese
Softcover $25.00
Ebook $7.99
Formats available: Trade paperback, ebook
ISBN: Softcover 9784902075540 / Ebook 9784902075717
Pub date: October 2014
Dimensions: 5″ x 8″

The inside story of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, based on interviews with the people who prevented disaster: what they faced, what resources and information they had, and why they made the decisions they did.